The Shriver Brief : Poverty Law Commentary & Insights : Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law : Affordable Housing, Healthcare Reform

Among the many uncertainties relating to the fallout of the BP oil spill in April off the Louisiana coast, there is at least one certainty: poor people and communities will be especially hard hit—their livelihoods, their homes, and their health, to name a few.  An “explosion” of poverty is expected in the Gulf Coast area, according to one advocate participating in the June 22, 2010, Clearinghouse Review readers’ conference call, on which 19 advocates representing nine states discussed the oil spill, state budget cuts, foreclosures, health care reform, and other legal topics.

Legal aid advocates and volunteers in the Gulf Coast communities are gearing up to assist clients with employment, housing, tax, and language access issues and claims. For example, they are compiling helpful resources on LawHelp, Louisiana’s online guide to free legal help, administered by Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, and on ProBonoNet. Already overloaded and underfunded, legal aid programs in the Gulf Coast are working together to figure out what their role is in the aftermath of this unnatural disaster and how to most effectively assist the expected surge of clients.

Conference call participants from other parts of the country discussed how state budget cuts are affecting their clients, ideas for establishing and preserving utility assistance for poor people, questions about working with the Social Security Administration on overpayment issues, the need for achieving relief in mold cases, and the challenges of accessing benefits in an era of web-based applications and declining access to public libraries’ computers, among others. Which of these topics would you most like to see covered in Clearinghouse Review? Vote now in a new two-question survey.

The discussion was part of a regular conference call series hosted by Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, a publication of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. Want to share your advocacy stories and article suggestions? Clearinghouse Review will host another conference call in October, tentatively scheduled for October 26. For more information, contact Shriver Center staff attorney–legal editor Catherine Dorn Schreiber.

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Data suggest that poverty rates in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) community may be higher than in the general population. A recent study published by the Williams Institute found that 24% of lesbians and bisexual women were poor compared with only 19% of heterosexual women. Moreover, poverty rates for children of same-sex couples were twice as high as those for children of married couples. Another study found that 23% of the transgender community in California lived below the poverty level.

There are many reasons that LGBT people experience more poverty than their heterosexual counterparts. LGBT people sometimes lose the support of their families when they come out. They are more vulnerable to employment discrimination than the general population. And, because of their lack of access to marriage in most states, LGBT people may face difficulties accessing health insurance and other necessary benefits.

What is, and what should be, the response of legal services advocates? Health care, housing, retirement, and estate planning are all areas in which low-income LBGT older adults may need advocates to help them tailor the law to their particular needs. Medicare-participating long-term nursing facilities much comply with “quality-of-life” requirements, and Section 8 housing can be used to secure long-term housing for LGBT partners. Advocates can help LGBT older adults arrange their affairs and name beneficiaries to reflect these individuals’ wishes and protect their partners.

Advocates interested in learning more should check out the March-April issue of Clearinghouse Review, which features two articles on meeting the legal needs of LGBT clients.

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Today we are seeing the needs of military families being raised to level of national importance. First Lady Michelle Obama, along with Dr. Jill Biden, has made improving the lives of military families her signature issue, and this is reflected in a proposed expansion in funding for military support programs in the president’s 2011 budget. Improving the focus on military family issues is welcome, as the burdens placed on the men and women of our armed forces have increased throughout the past decade, where active-duty servicemembers have become accustomed to frequent and lengthy deployments overseas. This trend has imposed great challenges on our military families, which may not end upon the servicemember’s discharge into our already-sizable veteran population. These include, unfortunately, a full range of legal issues, many of which are unique to those currently and formerly serving in the armed forces.

As these legal needs have grown, they have been met with many local, state, and national initiatives enabling attorneys to step forward to deliver much-needed legal help to active-duty sevicemembers and veterans. And where military culture had historically adopted a “we take care of our own” attitude when it came to providing legal services to its members, the military legal assistance establishment is now grateful for the support of and collaboration with the private bar to act as a “force multiplier” to extend the range of services and legal counsel available to servicemembers, often delivered at a reduced cost or free-of-charge by the civilian attorneys.

There is much that a private bar attorney can to do aid our current and former servicemembers. Many military families encounter civil legal needs, such as:

• landlord/tenant matters, including deposit recovery problems related to Servicemember Civil Relief Act (SCRA) lease terminations;
• family law issues, especially child custody disputes arising around overseas deployment;
• credit and lending problems, which can include payday loans, auto sales contracts, and interest rate reductions under the SCRA;
• employment issues, particularly for National Guard members and Reservists needing to enforce reemployment rights;
• guardianship needs, or estate matters on behalf of families of deceased servicemembers; and
• securing vitally-needed benefits for veterans from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In the fall of 2009, the Shriver Center published a special issue of Clearinghouse Review featuring articles written by military and civilian attorneys on these and other topics affecting veterans, servicemembers, and their families. This issue of the Review is an important tool supporting work done to expand access to justice for current and former military members, and it is available online for subscribers; nonsubscribers may purchase individual articles, or order the entire special issue. Any military legal assistance attorney may have free access to the issue through the American Bar Association Military Pro Bono Project website. Attorneys, whether in legal aid, pro bono, or private practice, can do much to help military families, and this issue of the Review illuminates how such assistance can be provided.

For more discussion on these issues and the important role that can be played by members of the civilian bar, please join our Shriver Center Dialogue on Accessing Justice: Military Veterans, Servicemembers, and Their Families, Friday, February 26, 2010, at DLA Piper 203 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60601, at 8:15 a.m. Presenters will include advocates working to meet the legal needs of this important population. We hope you will join us to find out how you can get involved with giving back to those who have sacrificed so much for us.
 

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Federal and state governments are overwhelmed solving the unprecedented combination of problems caused by the distressed economy, health care reform, and crises in state and federal budgets. Even the experts cannot easily answer the complicated and overlapping questions raised by these difficulties. These same problems intensify the hardships of people already struggling in poverty. They lead to more people going hungry, and losing their jobs or homes.

Clearinghouse Review editors are looking to lighten the load of advocates whose hands are full helping struggling families and seeking social and economic justice for their client communities. For 2010, we plan to publish articles that will assist advocates in solving client problems related to income, jobs, housing, budget crises, and racial justice. Here are a few examples.

Pursuant to the settlement of a nationwide class action, the income of thousands of older adults and people with disabilities may be increased by more than $500 million in retroactive social security benefits.  Attorneys from the National Senior Citizens Law Center  describe the settlement in a recent Clearinghouse Review article. This article is part of a major outreach effort to ensure that eligible clients receive the benefits that they were illegally denied under the Social Security Administration’s “fleeing felon” policy. 

As foreclosures continue and more people lose their homes, advocates across the country are experimenting with different ways to help their clients. In two recent articles, one resourceful author makes the case for a right to counsel in foreclosure actions. In another article, authors from California approach advocacy from a different angle. They recommend that advocates explore the importance of “frames”--the stories and explanations embedded in our thought patterns about the way society and the world work--in how they communicate about the issues that matter to their clients and in their advocacy. Giving specific examples of what language to use and what to avoid, they present the theory and application of framing as an advocacy tool, in particular in race equity advocacy.

We are interested in your feedback on these article topics and your ideas for other topics we might cover this year. I invite you to connect with us by:

• commenting on this blog;
  
• signing up for one of our occasional readers' conference calls (look for dates in the free Clearinghouse Review News enewsletter);
  
• participating in our discussion group on Facebook;
  
• filling out the online readers' survey for the most recent issue of the Review.

Through Clearinghouse Review we hope to offer innovative and effective legal strategies in representing low-income people and their communities. The more we hear and learn from you, the better we are able to plan content that is meaningful and relevant to your practice.
 

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